Hi , I figured this would be a good place to post this ?? I was wondering if any of you have a child or know of a child with a diagnosis of autism who has NO vaccinations, mom with no history of Rhogam shots during pregnancy ,and no history of enviornmental exposure to mercury. I have a ds who is 10 who received his first two series of immunizations with bad reactions (not life threatening) after that no more shots and he was later diagnosed as autistic. I have three other children who are unvaccinated , except my second son who had the HepB shot after birth(which I regret)who is not autistic but has several "issues" which are too lenghty to explain. In my experience and opinion, I have come to the conclusion that although autism certainly has a genetic component, without the vaccines these children with the genetic susceptibility would be fine. I would just like to learn of any info anyone has on the subject. Personal experience, personal opinion, research , anything.

I do know a child in jus that situation. He is pretty profoundly autistic and his mama was unvaxed (religious reasons) and he is as well. There is no mercury/lead exposure that they can figure out either.

It seems logical to me that if autism exists on a spectrum, and some are more predisposed than others, that there must also be a genetic component. I think there are some children (very few) who are just, unfortunately going to be autistic. There must also be some for whom an environmental/medical trigger can bring it on.

Autism existed before vaccines, we just didn't call it that. There was, however, significantly less of it. I am certainly wary of vaccines and don't believe the claims that there is no link between vax and autism...but IMO it would be wrong to blame vaccines for the experience of every child who is suffering from autism. I am not a doctor..but it would make sense to me.

::::: Married for ten years to my good man :. Mama to my sweet and funny boy and my lovely little girl

I do know a child in jus that situation. He is pretty profoundly autistic and his mama was unvaxed (religious reasons) and he is as well. There is no mercury/lead exposure that they can figure out either.No rhogham, fish, dental fillings etc.? Sometimes the exposure is tough to track, but is there upon close inspection. They used to use thimerosal in saline nose spray even! It seems logical to me that if autism exists on a spectrum, and some are more predisposed than others, that there must also be a genetic component. I think there are some children (very few) who are just, unfortunately going to be autistic. There must also be some for whom an environmental/medical trigger can bring it on.
I do agree there are probably some children who will be autistic no matter what, but that being said, it is nearly impossible to figure out IF there has been an enviornmental exposure.
Autism existed before vaccines, we just didn't call it that. There was, however, significantly less of it. I am certainly wary of vaccines and don't believe the claims that there is no link between vax and autism...but IMO it would be wrong to blame vaccines for the experience of every child who is suffering from autism. I am not a doctor..but it would make sense to me.

As far as I knew the first documented cases of autism were noted by Kanner after vaccination had begun. cases prior to that probably did exist, but had not yet been given a name they were so rare.Mercury was a commonplace ingredient in many health items then. I wonder if there has ever been a study following up on the babies of the early part of the 20th century who were given mercury laced teething powders. Those who did not die, but did develop pink disease, and those who were exposed to the powder but did not develop pink disease. I wonder? I do not blame the vaccines for EVERY child with autism, but I do feel it is the problem for most ! JMHO! Thanks for the response, that is exactly the kind of info I am looking for!

i don't know if this is helpful at all, but my aunt who was born sometime in the late 1920s (1928 or so, i think) behaved somewhat as if she had autism. there was never any diagnosis, just a lot of sort of autistic-like behaviors (i'm scared that if i describe one or two, i'll get flamed for saying that they were autism like, but here are a couple of examples, i think - she would wear her shoes to bed and kick my mother for getting too near her; she had no sense of what was happy or sad to other folks and would laugh during the sad parts of movies; she tended to rock often or do other sort of repetitive behaviors). i don't really know what other diagnosis would fit with her behaviors...she was always just described as "different" or "strange."

In that she was born and lived in the Netherlands all of her life, it seems possible to me that there was exposure to lead given the time and the state of the environment at that time...

The kind of information you are looking for can only be accurately given by a "medical historian". Because you can never trust the AMA to give that kind of information. They can come up with reseach that proves that thimerosal or vaccines in general prevent autism.

But I just read an interesting article last nigh that stated we never had Down syndrome babies before vaccines. Nor diabetes 1 in infants under the age of four. Nor cancers in children under that age.

When I grew up in Europe, after the war, I had never heard the words allergies, eczema, asthma or influenza. I am sure they existed in medical literature but were not common with the regular language.
We had no need for those words. I did not know one single person in our whole family or surrounding who ever had any of those things.

do you all think vaccines are the ONLY cause of autism? do you think you can't get autism if you don't vax? I thought you still could, only lower incidence of children with autism in unvaxed population.

Jessemoon:
Besides thinking of genetics as a problem per se, one can think of the genes as simply a part of the body that can be injured...from environmental toxins. (And, another subject, malnutrition.) While disorders are thought of as being "passed down," they can also be inflicted on an individual at an early stage of development. It can happen in the womb. A little earlier yet, and it is prior to conception. An injury to the reproductive cells is "passed on" to the child and voila!genetic mutation.

There was "significantly less" autism before vaccines. There were significantly fewer vaccines, too! The amount of toxins different people are exposed to, I think, varies farrrr more than people give it credit for. We may be missing many incidences, simply by "not thinking" of them. I think these unnoticed forms of exposure account for most of the variations in susceptibility. Finally, once people become aware of autism and attention deficit disorder, there will be a tendency to overdiagnose them.

I'm not dismissing genetics altogether. I do think the role it plays is a smaller piece of the pie and the other slices are very large.

Thank you everyone for responding,to the question a pp asked - do Ithink all autism is caused by vaccines? The answer is no./ i believe there is a genetic susceptibility, then an enviornmental insult possibly in conjunction with a less than optimally functioning syste. For instance for some, the mercury in mom's fillings would be enough to trigger autism, in otherstwo rounds of shots anda bout of jaundice etc etc. Perhaps the descriptions of peopke years ago who would now possibly be considered autistic,had an enviormental exposure some other way. I just feel in my heart this is not a genetic epidemic, which is impossible and that leaves us with a man made epidemic(either through vaccines,fush, water or whatever) Something we are doing is causing this problem and I think it is the vaccines.

A couple years? back, a woman wrote a letter to Mothering saying that her first 3 sons were vaxed and developed autism. Then she learned about the supposed connection w/vax and autism, so her fourth son was not vaxed. Guess what? He's autistic, too. I feel sooooooooooo bad for that mama.

It may have been the same mother who responded to the article on vaxing and autism in the mothering issue a few months back. Although, as i recall, she had only three sons. First two were vaxed then diagnosed and the third was not vaxed but also diagnosed. I wish there were an easy answer. All of this makes me think of kater07's sig:

Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. -- Elizabeth Stone

very interesting thread... i've often wondered the same thing myself... but figured that with so many reactions not recorded and so many reactions NOT blamed on vaccines that it would be impossible to figure out

i'm mad at myself... i was on the bus one day - in my eight month of pregnancy - met a woman who was working on a documentary about vaccines - never got her name or email or anything - she would have some great information and stories i'm sure - talking with so many people about this huge scary topic

Tug - I LOVE that quote... I heard it while I was pregnant and had forgotten it.

A couple years? back, a woman wrote a letter to Mothering saying that her first 3 sons were vaxed and developed autism. Then she learned about the supposed connection w/vax and autism, so her fourth son was not vaxed. Guess what? He's autistic, too. I feel sooooooooooo bad for that mama.

That truly is awful, as I have said I do believe there IS a genetic component, I would be inclined to believe that mom in this case had mercury exposure somewhere along the lines. From fillings, rhogham,enviornmental exposure etc. I just don't believe autism is a purely genetic problem - there is no such thing as a genetic epidemic, and an epidemic is exactly what we have here.

I know a mom on another board whos son is autistic and is not vaxed. I have no idea about rho gam or anything like that though. I find it hard to believe though that there were no things like down's before vaxes? That is basically a genetic complication when baby was being made. If we say vaxes caused them, we would have to believe every baby conceived before vaxes was perfect and I just can't do that.